stage in the peculiar way characteristic of hysteria. But what is thus put on the stage has become almost a reality. We know from hundreds of experiences that certain hysterical pains are only put on the stage in order to reap certain advantages from the sufferer’s surroundings. The patients not only believe that they suffer, but their sufferings are, from a psychological standpoint, as real as those due to organic causes; nevertheless, they are but stage-effects. The Regression of Libido This utilization of reminiscences to put on the stage any illness, or an apparent etiology, is called a _regression of the libido_. The libido goes back to reminiscences, and makes them actual, so that an apparent etiology is produced. In this case, by the old theory, the fright from the horses would seem to be based on a former shock. The resemblance between the two scenes is unmistakable, and in both cases the patient’s fright is absolutely real. At any rate, we have no reason to doubt her assertions in this respect, as they are in full harmony with all other experiences. The nervous asthma, the hysterical anxiety, the psychogenic depressions and exaltations, the pains, the convulsions—they are all very real, and that physician who has himself suffered from a psychogenic symptom knows that it feels absolutely real. Regressively re-lived reminiscences, even if they were but phantasies, are as real as remembrances of events that have once been real. As the term “regression of libido” shows, we understand by this retrograde mode of application of the libido, a retreat of the libido to former stages. In our example, we are able to recognize clearly the way the process of regression is carried on. At that farewell party, which proved a good opportunity to be alone with the host, the patient shrank from the idea of turning this opportunity to her advantage, and yet was overpowered by her desires, which she had never consciously realized up to that moment. The libido was not used consciously for that definite purpose, nor was this purpose ever acknowledged. The libido had to carry it out through the unconscious, and through the pretext of the fright caused by an apparently terrible danger. Her feeling at the moment when the horses approached illustrates our formula most clearly; she felt as if something inevitable had now to happen.